20

After Kyle Keating and I watch the last unbroken egg trundle as fast as it can toward the curb, totter with indecision at the edge and finally topple into the gutter, its yellow yolk slithering free of its broken shell, there is an awkward moment.

We’re just sort of standing there, facing each other but looking down at the sidewalk.

So, yeah, says Kyle.

Yeah, I say. I know.

Kyle’s hands are dug down deep in the pockets of his jeans. I can see his knuckles pressing against the tight denim. He’s rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. I’m still holding the torn and empty paper bag.

Even though I’ve talked my head off the whole way home about Mercy Hanrahan and the love potion and the glassblower I’ve got an appointment with about bottles for the potion, and Amber and Gary, I suddenly can’t think of a single thing to say.

Neither can Kyle.

But then he gets a text and says he has to head off to work. He’s a lifeguard. I tell him I’ll talk to Mr. Follett about maybe getting a new set of eggs and starting the project over (anything to avoid writing the essay about teen pregnancy).

Thanks for walking me home, Kyle, I say.

You’re welcome, Flannery, he says. And then Kyle is jogging up Long’s Hill, and I burst into the house slinging my knapsack off my shoulder onto the pile of boots, yelling for Miranda.

I’ve got to go to this glassblower’s studio. So can we drive?

There isn’t much gas.

We don’t have to go very far.

Can’t someone else take you?

Miranda, you’ll enjoy this.

It sounds like shopping.

It’s not shopping, and I need the truck so I can bring back the bottles. Plus, do you want me to fail Entrepreneurship?

How are you paying for this?

The guy said I can pay after the fair, out of my profits.

Awfully optimistic, this guy.

Believes in the love potion, it seems.

He said that?

He implied it.

When Miranda and I finally pull up in the truck there’s a squat cinderblock building with a blinking red sign in the window that says Glass Studio. The door has a wrought-iron ring for knocking.

We knock, but there’s no answer, so I pull the door open.

The heat hits us in the face. We can hear the furnace breathing fire like Tyrone’s dragon.

Inside, a man is lifting something from the huge furnace with what looks like a giant pair of tweezers. He’s wearing denim overalls and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a trucker’s cap that says Kingsbridge Auto. He has wireless octagonal glasses that sink into his apple-red cheeks, and he appears to have no teeth but lots of fine white nose hair. He’s got to be at least eighty-five.

Look! says Miranda.

The man is holding up a tiny, delicate glass bottle. It’s shaped like a bottle but it appears to be liquid fire. It is pulsing like it is a heart, and the heart is flushing with blood that is not blood but white boiling light with a yellow halo.

The man dips the little vessel into a vat and there’s a hiss and a cloud of smoke and he lifts the glass heart out of the vat and it’s a perfect bottle for a love potion.

He sees us watching and comes to meet us with one hand out for shaking and the other still holding his treasure in the tweezers.

I broke one of the hundred packing them up and had to make a new one, the man says. I’m Fred MacLachlan, pleased to meet you. Now, which one of you is the mother?

Oh, stop, says Miranda.

Two ravishing beauties, he says. What a pleasure.

I introduce myself and Miranda and within seconds they’re deep in conversation — about the new parking garage on Water Street, and the graffiti, and how the construction is blocking traffic. And Fred tells Miranda about his upcoming move to Europe.

You should come along, he says.

Oh, I have my kids, she says.

Well, I guess they’ll grow up sometime, he says. This comment annoys me, naturally.

We don’t want to hold you up, I say to him. After all, you have to get ready for your trip. You’re leaving soon, right? Leaving the province? Going to some place where they understand glass?

Huh? he says. He’s having a hard time taking his eyes off Miranda.

Oh yes, he says. But wait. Let me see what I have for this beautiful lady. A memento.

He’s gone to the back of the warehouse and we hear something that sounds like a shelf of glass tipping over and smashing.

He’s laying it on a little thick, isn’t he? I whisper.

Oh, I don’t know, says Miranda.

He comes back holding a little glass figurine out before him. He puts it in Miranda’s open palm.

It’s a polar bear, Miranda says. Oh, my! Flannery, look! She is clearly moved by his gesture.

A little glass polar bear, Flannery! Like my ice sculptures.

Global warming, the guy says. I read about your project in Canadian Art.

You read that? Miranda says.

Of course I did. Two-page spread, how could I miss it. Very nice picture of you, too, on the beach with the bonfire.

You’re too kind, Miranda says. So. But. You’re leaving, though?

We actually have to get going too, Miranda, I say. Got to pick up my brother, I tell the guy. That’s Miranda’s other child? She has two, actually. And he’s very young. He’s not going to be grown up any time soon. I look at the guy to make sure this is sinking in.

Well, what a pleasure, Miranda says.

Me too, the guy says. It’s an honor. An artist of your caliber. It really is an honor. You’re doing such good work. Keep it up. And good luck with your love potion, Florence.

Flannery, I say.

Indeed, he says. Good luck.